We could suck it up and accept Brexit yes. But when the golden carrot of independence is so so(!) close, by hook or by crook, we would be insane not to try and grasp it by any means possible. If Sturgeon and the people of Scotland are canny and savvy enough, mibbe just mibbe, we can get over the line as an Independent country (whether that's in or out the EU!). With careful calculation and timing, and seeing how the cards fall elsewhere, we could get over the line and finally be in charge of our own destinies. The way I see it this is an opportunity, and a big one. The leadership shown by Sturgeon since last Thursday has been admirable, while the others have either hid or imploded. And she's doing the exact right thing forging alliances with Northern Ireland, London and Gibraltar; while seeking to open direct dialogue with The EU. By her own admission, no stone will be left unturned to protect Scotland's EU rights.

Quidsin wrote:We could suck it up and accept Brexit yes. But when the golden carrot of independence is so so(!) close, by hook or by crook, we would be insane not to try and grasp it by any means possible. If Sturgeon and the people of Scotland are canny and savvy enough, mibbe just mibbe, we can get over the line as an Independent country (whether that's in or out the EU!). With careful calculation and timing, and seeing how the cards fall elsewhere, we could get over the line and finally be in charge of our own destinies. The way I see it this is an opportunity, and a big one. The leadership shown by Sturgeon since last Thursday has been admirable, while the others have either hid or imploded. And she's doing the exact right thing forging alliances with Northern Ireland, London and Gibraltar; while seeking to open direct dialogue with The EU. By her own admission, no stone will be left unturned to protect Scotland's EU rights.

Would love this to happen. However, we have a serious amount of head cases in this country who sadly have been indoctrinated by their parents, school mates and assorted other eedjits. Even our own council is complicit in fostering bigotry with their stupid sponsored "Idiots march" at the weekend. The knuckle draggers and Project Fear 3 will ensure enough of these muppets vote to remain part of this broken state, if we even get indyref2 off the ground. I think its still too early to even try, but I am no politician. Maybe the time is right to strike whilst the iron is hot.

Quidsin wrote:We could suck it up and accept Brexit yes. But when the golden carrot of independence is so so(!) close, by hook or by crook, we would be insane not to try and grasp it by any means possible. If Sturgeon and the people of Scotland are canny and savvy enough, mibbe just mibbe, we can get over the line as an Independent country (whether that's in or out the EU!). With careful calculation and timing, and seeing how the cards fall elsewhere, we could get over the line and finally be in charge of our own destinies. The way I see it this is an opportunity, and a big one. The leadership shown by Sturgeon since last Thursday has been admirable, while the others have either hid or imploded. And she's doing the exact right thing forging alliances with Northern Ireland, London and Gibraltar; while seeking to open direct dialogue with The EU. By her own admission, no stone will be left unturned to protect Scotland's EU rights.

Would love this to happen. However, we have a serious amount of head cases in this country who sadly have been indoctrinated by their parents, school mates and assorted other eedjits. Even our own council is complicit in fostering bigotry with their stupid sponsored "Idiots march" at the weekend. The knuckle draggers and Project Fear 3 will ensure enough of these muppets vote to remain part of this broken state, if we even get indyref2 off the ground. I think its still too early to even try, but I am no politician. Maybe the time is right to strike whilst the iron is hot.

And the iron is very hot. There is a sea change in opinion of previous 'No' voters who feel conned by Scotland losing its EU rights. These were the very people who were duped in to believing Better Together would protect Scotland's interests, and how?, by removing us from the EU! Good job there then Imposing an EU referendum on us that we didn't want or vote for! There has been a massive shift towards independence to those No voters who feel disenfranchised. Cracking speech by SNPs Alyn Smith at the EU which got a standing ovation from his EU colleagues 'Cher colleagues'. Emotions running high here and in Brussels. Juncker has met with Sturgeon and the EU continues to engage with us. A 'reverse Greenland' would be a good outcome for us.

Sickening to watch Sturgeon fawning over the EU elite.
Why would anyone ever want to be in such a corrupt, nation destroying organisation?
She seems to have been told to get lost. Quelle surprise!
Actually, I think it's more a case of anyone but England. Simple as that.
Scotland voted to stay in the UK which in turn voted for Brexit. End of story!
Already the stock market is higher than it was before the vote.
Pound is still down against the dollar which will help exporters.

dixie chicken wrote:Sickening to watch Sturgeon fawning over the EU elite.
Why would anyone ever want to be in such a corrupt, nation destroying organisation?
She seems to have been told to get lost. Quelle surprise!
Actually, I think it's more a case of anyone but England. Simple as that.
Scotland voted to stay in the UK which in turn voted for Brexit. End of story!
Already the stock market is higher than it was before the vote.
Pound is still down against the dollar which will help exporters.

Bit early for a victory lap no?

The real damage will come article 50 is triggered. Until then, as has been made clear, the EU arent talking to ANYONE. That is a very deliberate ploy to dare us to do it and clearly must include Sturgeon.

dixie chicken wrote:Sickening to watch Sturgeon fawning over the EU elite.
Why would anyone ever want to be in such a corrupt, nation destroying organisation?
She seems to have been told to get lost. Quelle surprise!
Actually, I think it's more a case of anyone but England. Simple as that.
Scotland voted to stay in the UK which in turn voted for Brexit. End of story!
Already the stock market is higher than it was before the vote.
Pound is still down against the dollar which will help exporters.

Yer mate Garage made a bit of a fool of himself with his speech @ EU, and his "Independence Day!" p1sh. Now he has his wish will he simply disband his party?

FTSE 100 was higher today - think the 250 still below what it was, but ok, I'll give you that one.

What exactly have you won though?
No chance of being part of EEA without freedom of movement so thats the points based immigration plan fecked. And it seems thats what they want to try and negotiate towards. So that makes a lie of the "Control Immigration" the Leave campaign spouted.
The £ 350 million a week won't be going to the NHS (only an idiot would have believed that one), so thats a pretty direct lie on what was a key part of the Leave campaign.
That was the two key features that were promoted by Leave as what we'd be gaining - both direct lies.

Not that I am at all surprised that we have left - everything that went wrong with this country was blamed on the EU and immigrants, when largely our country's woes had feck all to do with the EU, and more to do with the banking sector. I just worry who will get the blame next - the muslims, or the jews?

dixie chicken wrote:Sickening to watch Sturgeon fawning over the EU elite.
Why would anyone ever want to be in such a corrupt, nation destroying organisation?
She seems to have been told to get lost. Quelle surprise!
Actually, I think it's more a case of anyone but England. Simple as that.
Scotland voted to stay in the UK which in turn voted for Brexit. End of story!
Already the stock market is higher than it was before the vote.
Pound is still down against the dollar which will help exporters.

Yer mate Garage made a bit of a fool of himself with his speech @ EU, and his "Independence Day!" p1sh. Now he has his wish will he simply disband his party?

FTSE 100 was higher today - think the 250 still below what it was, but ok, I'll give you that one.

What exactly have you won though?
No chance of being part of EEA without freedom of movement so thats the points based immigration plan fecked. And it seems thats what they want to try and negotiate towards. So that makes a lie of the "Control Immigration" the Leave campaign spouted.
The £ 350 million a week won't be going to the NHS (only an idiot would have believed that one), so thats a pretty direct lie on what was a key part of the Leave campaign.
That was the two key features that were promoted by Leave as what we'd be gaining - both direct lies.

Not that I am at all surprised that we have left - everything that went wrong with this country was blamed on the EU and immigrants, when largely our country's woes had feck all to do with the EU, and more to do with the banking sector. I just worry who will get the blame next - the muslims, or the jews?

The £350 million a week was the Gross cost and, yes, we get a big wedge back in grants and subsidies but we don't control it. That's the point which was fairly clear to anyone with a smidgeon of intelligence.
It's all very well for us in Scotland not to be bothered by immigration which is quite modest but parts of England are in a desperate state.
The basic point is Sovereignty, in fact the very points that the SNP want for an independent Scotland.
A diverse group of countries with different languages and cultures cannot be part of a United States Of Europe, which is what the elite are wanting. It just doesn't work!!

Dixie, you cant write off the NHS claim that easily. Firstly.... Idiots vote. Secondly, they were driving around in a huge fcuking red bus that said "Lets give the 350m that we give the EU to our NHS."

That claim was a cynical lie and that was the exact context in which the lie was told. That troll Farage came straight out the next day and admitted it.

I cant believe you would try to dismiss this when IMO what we really have here is something glaringly wrong with the system where you can fraudulently gain votes then laugh it off on breakfast TV the following day. Its disgusting.

Bairnardo wrote:Dixie, you cant write off the NHS claim that easily. Firstly.... Idiots vote. Secondly, they were driving around in a huge fcuking red bus that said "Lets give the 350m that we give the EU to our NHS."

That claim was a cynical lie and that was the exact context in which the lie was told. That troll Farage came straight out the next day and admitted it.

I cant believe you would try to dismiss this when IMO what we really have here is something glaringly wrong with the system where you can fraudulently gain votes then laugh it off on breakfast TV the following day. Its disgusting.

Hang on a minute.
I thought, but I may be wrong, that the pledge was to give £100m per week.
If the battle bus said £350m a week, then that was wrong
Are you sure it wasn't £350m for public services?
No ifs, no buts.
Equally, remain said that we would be heading to WW111, we would be £4300 per year worse off and lots more dire warnings.

What bothers me, and not for the first time and not just with this referendum, is consequence free lies told on buses, posters and manifestos to steal peoples votes.

Are we so blasé now with our democracy that its ok to lie to get the vote? In other countries people literally still are fighting and dying to get a vote. In any other walk of life, this is fraud. What separates their lies from aomeone like me, is their lies are spread across the land and decisions made on the basis of their lies affect every single Briton. Why is this not illegal?

I don't actually believe that he was ever expecting [or even wanting] this result.
He is a dangerous, devious manipulator who was using the referendum as an opportunity to further his leadership ambitions in the Conservative party.
The bewilderment that was written all over his face when the result was declared was a sight to see.

PS
Farage giving his victory speech in Brussels the other day was a case study in being an ar$ehole!

Edited to add that Gove has stabbed Boris in the back beautifully!

PS
Farage is still an ar$ehole!

Awful things that can never be unseen:
Olive getting her paps oot in Holiday on the Buses
Thatcher on the steps of 10 Downing St 1979
Ross County 7, Falkirk 0

Time I think to speak a bit of sense and other times I think you are away with the birds.

Your stance is the exit is okand everybody should have their view for the right reasons, but you cant support the lies that have been said now or from 2 years ago.
2 years ok it was the blue nose element and the last minute lies from senior ex tories and Labour that swung the vote or it would have been close the other way.
Some the the exit campaign should be brought to court similar to the Liberal guy from Shetland. The bus slogan was just poor lies no other word for it. The migration was a hot topic and I do think this swung it in a number of areas down south, but we (Scotland) have a migration issue of another kind, but a lot less of an issue. There is a move from middle / south England to Scotland. As I said this is a lot less of an issue, but still happening and the Scottish population is growing at the same time the amount of jobs are decreasing fast. I was speaking to some of my colleagues from the south coast, on a visit, during the Scottish referendum. Most to the view is that people are moving due to the migration issue but I was shock that some of them stated that national companies will move managers from South to Scotland as the "Scots" or Jocks" do not have the knowledge or skills to manage large stores or high tech business. I think we would both agree that this was out of order, but I did start to listen the next time I was at Tesco, Asda and B&Q, it is right most of the managers have an English, mainly south coast accents.

Back to Boris and the tories the main topic.
I always make a point of buying papers before I return north to read on the train or plan or later if I need to work when traveling. over the last 2 years there has been an increase in the demand / promises from Tories to encourage companies to move South, but mainly targeting Scottish companies. Boris had an IT conference just before he came out of the Major office. The aim of this was for software developing companies to close the Scottish (he did state Scottish) operations and to re-locate to London. You might think that they are not a lot of jobs in the this, but I look into it and they are over 20k jobs between Stirling Perth and Dundee, spread over 917 register companies. Some of the major gaming companies write there software here, but have their head office elsewhere. Better together indeed, at least you know when you are being stabbed in the back.

Engineering
Shipyards have quoted that pressure in being put on BAE to have some of the new frigates to be built not on the Clyde but Davenport, hence the delay.

Transport
Boris was encouraging TFL to trial and buy new vehicles MCV and Mercedes which are built in Egypt ahead of UK built vehicles

Finance
I applaud the bigger companies that are currently stating that they will wait until article 50, button is pressed, but reports on Radio Scotland earlier in the week that due to current rules some financial services must be carried out within the EU if that product is to be sold within the EU. The total number of jobs quoted was 250k now these are high paid jobs lost. It was also stated that the master stroke would be if Scotland can keep the United Kingdom together, but without England then these jobs would be able to move north as this would be easier than to move across the channel. This was discussed again later in the week quoting the Nobel prize wining economist from Strathcyle Uni.

I was down south on business this week and both the Mail and the Guardian was reporting about the option of a new "United Kingdom" of Scotland, North Ireland, Isle of Man, Jersey, Gersney and Gibraltar, with Scotland taking the lead. Now I do like that idea, but now practical. I was interesting to read the Guardian rip apart almost every claim that Boris had quoted during the campaign. The next time you are south of the border buy a paper and compare the writing to the same paper in Scotland. the same story has a different view to the point you would think it was a different story. I do think that if the SNP was to fund a cure for a major life threatening illness that the Mail would be headlining "Nasty Nats policy affecting the Undertaking trade".

The exit process has still a long way to go, but I am concerned about the state the red and blue parties too much career politicians that no longer care about the people. Westminster I have now had enough off and at the least we need to have a Federal state with the UK. I take pride that I have voted for many parties and will all ways look at what is on offer before voting, but politics has went through the floor and in some cases almost corrupt other the last 20 to 30 years and I fear it is only going to get worse. Just got to look close to home for that.

I hear what you say, Rufus, and it is a well researched and lengthy piece that you have produced.
However, you seem to think that governments are involved in business decisions which is just not the case. They can set the conditions through tax and social policies but, at the end of the day, which people are promoted or where business locates is up to senior management.
Governments don't produce wealth. Businesses do and they locate in the most beneficial places for them.
Regarding the media, yes, they take different positions in different countries depending on the readership. The Daily Mail was leave in England but remain in Scotland. We all know that.
You are being a bit selective in accusing the Leave side of all the lies as the Remain side came out with some real howlers about Armageddon, financial meltdown etc. Last time I looked the FTSE was over 6500
Regarding 2014, both sides came out with some whoppers.
The oil projections were always dodgy and the SNP had no credible currency policy.
Likewise project fear was overblown on the NO side.
At the end of the day everyone has to try to see 'the wood from the trees' and come to their own conclusions which will inevitably come down to Feelings rather than logic with trying to bend the facts to suit their own inclinations.
In my case I want to be in an independent and sovereign UK. Being Scottish is a subsidiary matter.